Umbilical
cord blood banks & cord blood storage

An
umbilical cord blood bank is a place where cord blood is stored and
preserved.

Cord
blood has been found to be a lifesaver for a number of people affected
by blood related curable afflictions that need bone marrow transplantation
or similar stem cell related treatment.

On receiving the umbilical cord blood the bank will first process
the cord blood received to ensure that it is devoid of any infection
or diseases and make sure that it is eligible for transplantation
purposes.

These
umbilical cord blood bank centers have special storage facilities
where the cord blood can be preserved for a long time until it is
required for a treatment or surgery.A
lot of awareness has been created on the need and importance of storage
of umbilical cord blood, and hence the service offered by such a bank
centers towards this purpose.

There
are also a few who question the services of such banks and most of
such criticism is directed towards private umbilical cord blood bank
procedures. The
primary accusation is that, these banks charge their customers a substantial
sum to store cord blood and reserve it for future needs within their
family use.

This
raises ethical questions regarding the price of life and whether such
a service should be available only to the few rich and affordable
families. Further
such a trend towards reserving the cord blood will also reduce the
quantity of cord blood available through donations to the public umbilical
cord blood bank centers and thus patients in need of cord blood might
not be able to get them when required.

According to the proponents of public umbilical cord blood bank centers,
this facility and services can become more and more affordable, if
the banks offering to store umbilical cord blood widen their services
for unrelated donors which will allow more people to donate their
childrens umbilical cord blood, which can be stored and later
served by the banks for other unrelated people who might be in need.

These
public umbilical cord blood bank centers do not charge the umbilical
cord blood donors who might not have a need personally for their own
children, but who choose to donate for other childrens sake.

Also,
these umbilical cord blood banks provide anonymity for the donors
and the receivers, which help in retaining the objectivity of the
service, in providing the blood to the needy at the correct time.